Google co-founder Brin donates $500K to Wikipedia

Moscow: The co-founder of Google, Sergei Brin, has donated $500,000 to Wikipedia`s foundation, Wikimedia, the foundation said on its web site Saturday.

Brin granted $500,000 from The Brin Wojcicki Foundation, the charity fund run by him and his wife, Anne Wojcicki, reported RIA Novosti.

The money however will not cover all Wikipedia`s annual budget of $28.3 million.

This week Wikipedia started its annual fund-rising campaign that is due to last until January, with the personal appeal from its founder Jimmy Wales, who created the world`s biggest user-created encyclopaedia in 2001. Wales has repeatedly said that there would not be any advertising on Wikipedia.

"Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn`t belong here. Not in Wikipedia," Wales said in its latest address.

Last year`s campaign raised $16 million to Wikimedia foundation.

Wikipedia was ranked the fifth most popular web-site in Internet with over 470 million unique visitors every month, comScore said in its October`s report.